Marlon Brando explored zones unpenetrated in acting and was a crusader for people’s causes.
By Harsh Thakor
April 3, 2024
Marlon Brando on 3rd April completes his birth centenary. He died in 2004, on 1st July, aged 80 years.
Arguably in Hollywood, Brando penetrated sensitivity and versatility at an unparalleled scale and discovered new horizons or explored path breaking zones in acting. Brando literally pioneered a new style of acting or took it to another dimension.
No one was as impactful or crafty in projecting an anti-hero as a hero in his own right or better in defying past conventions in acting, as Brando.
Brando gave acting an unmatched touch of realism, and enacted a spectrum of roles and path breaking experiments no actor ever did.
His acting had a unique mysterious element or suspense, which left an audience spellbound and often when performed resembled a scientist experimenting.
In his lifetime he played the role of a crusader for social justice immersing in struggles for native Indians and black people. His acting often portrayed the indignation of oppressed people against social injustice .With great courage; he even refused awards for his films.
His activities were shaped by an instinctive hatred for corrupt authority and the autocratic, despotic Hollywood system. He was a man caught between procuring the vast wealth and fame offered by acting, which he claimed he loathed, and the inequalities of society that ignited his rebellious spirit.
No actor better symbolized the fallacies of a repressive social order and its impact in shaping a man’s life. Brando also displayed untold mastery in expressing moral conviction of oppressed fighting for justice. No actor has effectively projected radicalism or manifested spirit of rebellion.
The world of cinema needs a Marlon Brando to be re-born in the context of the sheer crass commercialism engulfing the world of movies, virtually devoid of any humanism. It would plant seeds to resurrect the spirit of progress.
Early life and baptism into acting
Brando was born in 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, to an actress mother and a salesman father. His family life was volatile or disturbed, with his mother accusing his father of ruining her career. Columnist Bob Thomas quotes Brando as once telling him, “My father was a travelling salesman and my mother was a drunk, and I had a complete nervous breakdown at the age of 19. I might easily have become a criminal. Only by 10 years of intensive psychoanalysis did I manage to retain my sanity.”
The Brandos moved to Illinois and Marlon was admitted to a military academy in Minnesota, from which he was expelled before graduation. Brando moved to New York in 1943, and received his first theoretical baptism as Nels in the stage production of the drama about Scandinavian immigrants, I Remember Mama, in 1944.
Brando studied acting at the Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research in New York, where he was under the tutelage of acting teacher Stella Adler. Brando said simply of Adler, “She taught me to be real and not to try to act out an emotion I didn’t personally experience during a performance.”
Brando, was a product of the Stanislawski School of Method acting, .He made New York–based acting teacher Stella Adler, as his role model. and was a fan of the virtuosic Fredric March and tough guy James Cagney.
Brando first lit the box office silver screen with Movie ‘A streetcar named desire’, which was an epic of its era. His performance literally redefined acting techniques. In subsequent films ‘Viva Zapata’ and ‘On the Waterfront’ he displayed most distinctive character when executing different roles. In the 3 movies, one can hardly identify that it is Marlon Brando or the same actor performers such was his depth in the very skin of the character.
Political views and activism
From the early 1960s Brando integrated himself with Native American rights, getting arrested in 1963 in the state of Washington to support Native American fishing rights. In 1976 Brando stood up for American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks when he was arrested in San Francisco.
His radical social views led to his rebellion against the increasingly conformist character of the film roles he was offered. After sharp disagreements with director Lewis Milestone on Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), during which Milestone claimed” Brando used to stuff cotton in his ears so as to block out the director’s instructions”, the actor became known as “difficult.”
The most spectacular instance of Brando’s activism came at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony when 80 million television viewers witnessed the Apache Sacheen Little feather take the dais to refuse the Best Actor Oscar on Brando’s behalf to attract media attention to American Indian grievances.
In Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, Producer Alexander Salkind blindly rejected Brando’s arguments for including historically accurate accounts of Columbus’ brutal treatment and exploitation of the Indians. However, instead of relinquishing a multimillion-dollar salary by walking out on the project, the actor voiced his disapproval through a poor performance. This “protest” was the only time in Brando’s career that he was deliberately ineffective in a role — was lost on movie audiences and critics, as well as on dismayed and outraged allies in the Indian movement.
Reflections of his Life
Brando’s personal life was most controversial, complex and self-contradictory. In many junctures he expressed vulnerability.
It is mysterious why such a talented actor spent his last days as a recluse living on social security and a pension from the Screen Actors Guild, bloated to 22 stone and completely lost his trim figure and athleticism of his earlier years.
His stepping into a cocoon, interspersed by appearing in shady films, deprived the radical movement of a character who could have been a mantle for workers whose lives are a continuous struggle for a decent existence.
If Brando had possessed a socialist vision, it is probable that his legacy could have been an inspiration to workers looking for a popular explanation and solution to the ills of society.
According to Brando’s Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work, Susan Mizruchi’s extensively researched new biography, investigating the often antagonistic dichotomy between a capacious intellect and a vast, intuitive talent went a long way to unravelling the everlasting enigma that is Marlon Brando.
“He modeled,” Mizruchi tells “a kind of social activism – the idea that actors were obligated in some sense to use their fame to help others.”
Regretfully Brando’s acting genius and relentless commitments to social issues such as civil rights had all but been obliterated by a prevailing public image of an eccentric and self opinionated troublemaker with a self-destructive hatred for his own profession and a greed for approving a fat paycheck.
Brando expressed his increasing disillusionment for the film industry and even for the acting profession.
He would tell interviewers: “The only reason I’m here in Hollywood is because I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.”
Significantly, Brando held late Chairman MaoTse Tung of China in great esteem. Quoting him “There are no giants today. Mao Tse-tung was the last giant.” Marlon Brando, Playboy interview, 1978.
Best Films of Marlon Brando
Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Based on a Broadway production (along with the majority of the cast, and director Elia Kazan), Brando portrays the brutish Stanley Kowalski. His distinctive line deliveries combined with his unique sexuality marked a genius.
The distinctive acting styles of Brando and classically-trained lead Vivien Leigh brings an electric effect to the already intense tussle between Stanley and his faded southern belle sister-in-law.
A ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ deals with the struggles between the Kowalski family and Blanche.
Projects the duel for power between economic classes and the transformations occurring in America at that time, regarding social status. The friction between Blanche and Stanley manifests the conflict between social classes, the contrast of old and new America. One, the monopoly of power of the upper class over the lower class, and how it crystallises an upheaval of the classes.
Film illustrates the wide range of struggles between the old Southern aristocracy to the modern society that inhabits the city.
The plot or characters woven of Streetcar project the socioeconomic conditions and class struggles of 1940s America. It portrays the antagonism between the declining DuBois family and the volatile working class, represented by Stanley.
Marlon Brando was dynamic, advancing with magnetism and charisma, with power at heights rarely ever transcended. This performance simply changed the complexion of cinema.
On the Waterfront (1954)
This film projects the exploitation of workers; but in this case, instead of just being exploited by capitalists, these longshoremen are exploited, and terrorised, by the very people meant to be assisting or cooperating with them.
Corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly (Cobb) has connections with the mafia; which represent capitalists, so Friendly and his muscle are class traitors representing not their workers, but capital. Such betrayal has been a frequent phenomenon throughout the history of class war between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, manifesting itself not only in corrupt union bosses, but in left-leaning political parties that compromise with capital to subvert revolution.
Brando analysed the movie as a radical projection of the US working class and its capacity to combat the forces of corruption.
The writer Budd Schulberg and the director Elia Kazan saw the movie as a pardoning of their dirty decision to disclose their friends and “name names” at the House Un-American Activities Committee witch-trial.
Kazan had been an active participant in the witch-hunting House of un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and naming friends who were then debarred from the industry.
In spite of his despising HUAC, Brando accepted the starring role. The director, the screenwriter Bud Schulberg and most of the principal actors had all been collaborators. Kazan himself admitted that he made the film to justify his act of betrayal.
Brando enacts Terry Malloy, a longshoreman caught in crossfire between his involvement in a corrupt union and his love for Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint) – the sister of a man he aided that union to kill.
In the latter part , Brando stars as Terry Malloy, a rising boxer persuaded by a local mob boss to launch a fight, sacrificing his career. Malloy faces a tussle with his conscience in an intense moral journey after the event and becomes woven in union corruption as a dockworker. Brando plays the character with a high degree of nuance or malleability. Brando’s poise or inner transformation in his quest is indescribable.
The Godfather (1972)
The 3 part film remains a masterpiece to this day, brilliantly manifesting the impact of capitalism.
Michael’s story denotes the poisonous effects of greed and cut-throat competition or pursuit of profit completely transforms a person.
It illustrates how under capitalism, “the family relation is reduced to a mere money relation”, as Marx and Engels said, with no space for sentimentality or loyalty.
The Godfather resurrected Brando’s declining career.
Although just 47 at the time of shooting, makeup artist Dick Smith converted Brando into a septuagenarian. Enacting the mob patriarch Don Corleone produced a magnetic effect.
Brando anticipated the role of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather as a critique of American business and corporate greed, acting in contravention of author Mario Puzo’s vision of the character, and thus his performance is remarkable in that light.
Marlon Brando camouflages the mafia Don, weaving into a cast one of the most captivating screen performances ever. His subtle presence has a magnetic effect on the viewer.
Last Tango in Paris (1972)
Marlon Brando stars in Bernardo Bertolucci’s existential drama “Last Tango in Paris” as Paul, a middle-aged expatriate in Paris who has an intense, anonymous affair with a young girl named Jeanne (Maria Schneider).
Last Tango in Paris is about Paul, whose wife has just committed suicide in the hotel they owned, operated, and lived in together. In the introductory scene, he’s walking under an elevated train platform. As the train roars overhead Paul throws his head back and blocks his ears and lets loose a profane howl of anguish. The tone for the film is set.
Marlon Brando as Paul feels so ‘real’ and the character is so much in the very thick of the skin that a new dimension in screen acting has been climbed. What makes his performance so captivating are the intimate elements of his life that he captures. Bertolucci wanted Brando to weave his own personal history and creative ideas to the role. “He wanted me to play myself, to improvise completely and portray Paul as if he were an autobiographical mirror of me,” Brando recalls.
Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist.